On Bullshit

One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern. We have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves. And we lack a conscientiously developed appreciation of what it means to us. In other words, as Harry Frankfurt writes, "we have no theory."

Frankfurt, one of the world's most influential moral philosophers, attempts to build such a theory here. With his characteristic combination of philosophical acuity, psychological insight, and wry humor, Frankfurt proceeds by exploring how bullshit and the related concept of humbug are distinct from lying. He argues that bullshitters misrepresent themselves to their audience not as liars do, that is, by deliberately making false claims about what is true. In fact, bullshit need not be untrue at all.

Rather, bullshitters seek to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true. They quietly change the rules governing their end of the conversation so that claims about truth and falsity are irrelevant. Frankfurt concludes that although bullshit can take many innocent forms, excessive indulgence in it can eventually undermine the practitioner's capacity to tell the truth in a way that lying does not. Liars at least acknowledge that it matters what is true. By virtue of this, Frankfurt writes, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.

"Even physically the essay mocks itself with high bravado: hardback, throwback, big print." Nick Sylvester, The Village Voice

"Frankfurt's deadpan tone gives a comic flavor to many of his observations." Kenneth Baker, The San Francisco Chronicle

"You can read the book yourself in less than two hours. You will have given your brain a good workout and acquired a useful angle of view on an inescapable element of our culture. Think of On BS as an intellectual jeu d'esprit. Light on the jeu." Houston Chronicle

"All told, Frankfurt's approach suffers from excessive privileging of what one might call an 'internal point of view' — that of the speaker of bullbunkum. Unfortunately, the word is most often spoken as a judgment on someone else's speech." Philadelphia Inquirer

"Eureka! Frankfurt's definition is one of those not-at-all-obvious insights that become blindingly obvious." Slate

"The opening paragraph of the 67-page essay is a model of reason and composition, repeatedly disrupted by that single obscenity..." Peter Edidin, The New York Times

Harry G. Frankfurt is Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Princeton University. His books include The Reasons of Love (Princeton), Necessity, Volition, and Love, and The Importance of What We Care About.